In August 2004, the Americans took on the Mahdi Army in Najaf city. Earlier that year Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia led a failed uprising, and then continued attacks upon the Coalition in southern Iraq. That led the White House to authorize offensive operations against his forces, which led to the Battle for Najaf. During the fighting, Iran was intimately involved on both sides. On the one hand, it had advisers with the Mahdi Army helping them battle the Americans. On the other hand, it facilitated peace talks with the Iraqi government and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to end the conflict. While that might seem like a contradiction, it perfectly encapsulated Tehran’s role in Iraq, which was to have connections to all sides to exert influence throughout the country.
At the start of August 2004, the Battle of Najaf began
between the U.S. Marines and the Mahdi Army. During the fall, a new Marine unit
moved
into the Najaf area. They were told by the U.S. army that the city was secure,
but upon inspection they found militiamen active throughout the city. That immediately
led to clashes, which escalated into a battle for control of the city. The
interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the office of Ayatollah
Sistani were all involved in bringing the confrontation to an end.
Iran’s role in Najaf was two-fold. First, the Iranians were
the main military supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr. That meant there were Iranian advisers assisting his militia inside
Najaf, and providing it with funds. That came from the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards’ Quds Force Department
100. The Marines also believed
that they took on Iranian snipers and mortar teams. At the same time, Iran was
worried that the confrontation would derail the January elections, which it
hoped would give its Shiite political allies control of the new Iraqi
government. It therefore sent its operative Abu Muhandis to meet with Allawi’s
national security adviser Mowafaq Rubie, and told him that Tehran would help
mediate a ceasefire. Rubaie and Muhandis flew to Najaf and met with the Marine
commander to try to work out a peace deal. Allawi thought Sadr was gaining too
much in the talks so he removed Rubaie. That led to Ayatollah Sistani’s office
to take the lead. His representatives were in contact
with Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah officials to try to work something out. The
Ayatollah himself, had to fly to London for medical treatment. When he
returned, he met with Sadr who agreed to withdraw his forces and disarm and in
return the Marines would pull out as well.
Tehran came out ahead on all fronts. It supported its
militia allies to oppose the American occupation. It showed when it came to
Sadr Iran would be a main moderator. With the Battle of Najaf out of the way,
the January balloting went ahead, and the parties it backed won. Finally, PM
Allawi came out a loser in the confrontation as he was seen as compromising
with Sadr rather than defeating him on the battlefield. That was important
because as a former Baathist, Tehran was opposed to his government and to him
winning any significant showing in the 2005 voting. In a nutshell, Iran had
proven that it was a major player in Iraqi politics and the armed conflict, and
it could play both sometimes at the same time to make sure its interests were served.
SOURCES
Allawi, Ali, The
Occupation of Iraq, Winning The War, Losing the Peace, New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2007
Camp, Dick, Battle for
the City of the Dead, In the Shadow of the Golden Dome, Najaf, August 2004,
Minneapolis: Zenith Press, 2011
Gordon, Michael and Trainor, General Bernard, The Endgame, The Inside Story Of The
Struggle For Iraq, From George W. Bush To Barack Obama, New York, Pantheon,
2012
Al-Khoei, Hayder, “Ayatollah Sistani and The Battle of
Najaf,” Al-Monitor, 9/9/13
Weiss, Michael Hassan, Hassan, ISIS, Inside the Army of Terror, New York: Regan Arts, 2015
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